Monday, August 21, 2017

What could be passed if the Coaltion looses control of both Houses after the High Court

The easy one is marriage equality but there is much more exciting agenda and it goes like this.


  1. An end to negative gearing
  2. National introduction of controlled rents
    As common in many European countries this results in stable, long term tenancies and therefore a reduction in home ownership. Less home ownership means that parents whose children have left home are more likely to move into smaller, lower rent accommodation.
  3. Fibre to the home NBN
    This increases the proportion of the population that can work from home and hence less transportation costs to those families and less transport infrastructure development costs to State and Federal governments.
  4. An ambitious shift toward renewable power sources coupled with carbon pricing to stimulate innovation.
    This would halt the rise in power prices and it would also facilitate large scale desalination.
    Large scale desalination would have two very favourable side-effects:
    - Significant volumes of water would be removed from the oceans, reversing the already irreversible rise in sea level due to climate change
    - Significant, currently uninhabitable, areas of Australia could be farmed and inhabited meaning that a more relaxed immigration policy, leading to a higher population, could be considered.
  5. A shift toward autonomous vehicles.
    This would lessen the need for vehicle ownership. Coupled with more flexible work times this would also stabilise transport infrastructure costs.
  6. The effect of 2, 3, 4 and 5 would be to stabilise family or individual living costs such that a social wage could be paid to all adults of working age regardless of whether they worked. (as in Finland)
    The
     level of this wage could be tied to the controlled rent being paid and hence the overall cost to government limited.
    This could also be limited by not making this social wage available to those who, for religious or other reasons, insisted on more than two children for two adults
  7. The submarine building program, and warplane purchasing plans could be abandoned. Apart from discarding the pretence of mid-century "defence planning" in 2015 Federal expenditure would be saved. The employment argument that has, so far, pertained would be discounted by the social wage

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